New Haven education official advocates for different school funding structure

Finance officer wants revised funding based on per-pupil

Published 8:38 pm, Sunday, October 11, 2015

NEW HAVEN >> As enrollment in New Haven schools continues to rise, some education officials worry funding is not keeping up with the trend.

Victor De La Paz, chief financial officer for the public school district, said he would like to see the funding formula shift to one that accounts for each pupil in New Haven schools.

“If we have more kids, the city of New Haven should be getting more resources,” he said.

The district currently estimates 18,733 students will be enrolled in its schools this year, a growth of 200 students, with an estimated $9,620 being spent on each student’s education. Although this estimated total is an uptick in funding per pupil from the 2014-15 fiscal year, which came to $9,562 per student, De La Paz still worries the district might fall behind.

“The state could argue they’re funding our growth, but because it’s not based on student enrollment, it’s not clear,” he said. “The mechanism for funding our annual budget should have some link to the number of students we’re educating, and at present it doesn’t.”

De La Paz said that because the state funds more than three-quarters of its total budget, he would hope to lobby state officials for per-pupil funding.

“The funding is essentially flat this year, with a little bit of an increase in Alliance District Grant funding, but that is not fully funding the enrollment growth in New Haven,” he said.

According to the Connecticut School Finance Project, which claims to be a nonpartisan, independent source of data on school funding in the state, there are 10 different funding formulas used to determine how much money public schools receive. The organization calls the funding system in the state “unfair.”

De La Paz said one method New Haven is hoping to emphasize is magnet schools, by attracting suburban students into the city in order to procure more state funds. He said $36 million of the $180 million district budget is from magnet grants alone.

De La Paz said if neither the state nor the city is able to alter its funding formulas, the district might look to tightening its belt as a cost-saving measure.

“There are some other, more nuclear options that we have available to us that we haven’t really taken on yet, because they would be politically challenging,” he said.